NATION NEEDS STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THIS WAR

The Clinton administration and congressional leaders announced Thursday
that they will pour an unprecedented amount of money into a nationwide
campaign to convince young people to stay away from drugs.

The $2 billion effort will use nearly $200 million to purchase prime-time
slots for television ads that scrape any remaining vestige of glamur from
America's drug scene. Federal officials are seeking half the funds from the
private sector.

Be prepared for jarring scenes of people talking about heroin's ravages to
interrupt your TV sitcoms.

In one commercial commissioned by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America,
a woman brings out the familiar egg and frying pan to describe your brain
on drugs. Instead of frying the egg, she will smash up her entire apartment
with the pan and say, "This is your brain on heroin."

An advertising blitz cannot be the primary answer to the river of illicit
narcotics flowing into the United States. Cutting off the traffickers and
providing more outlets where addicts can receive treatment must be integral
to this battle.

But television can perhaps curtail America's demand for drugs. The
drug-free partnership estimates that teenagers have spent an average of
12,000 to 15,000 hours watching TV by the time they graduate from high
school.

Parents have the primary assignment of keeping their children informed
about drugs. But nightly TV ads discussing the "glamur" of going into
prostitution to pay for drug habits make the task much easier.